Human Rights activist and co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Nadia Murad will be a keynote speaker at the Chat for Impact Summit powered by WhatsApp.
The leading global voice for survivors of genocide and sexual violence, Murad will address representatives of the 30 organizations selected to participate in the summit. Nadia often participates in onstage conversations across the globe, sharing her painful story of captivity, her courageous escape and her new life as a human rights activist. Her keynote at the EMEA/APAC Summit will open up greater awareness of sexual violence, human trafficking and the needs of its victims, and the rights of all marginalized ethnic and religious minorities.
Taking place on May 6th (Americas) and May 20th (EMEA/APAC), the Chat for Impact Summit powered by WhatsApp has been initiated to help organizations working in social justice and other impact areas to advance their goals of addressing societal issues using WhatsApp as a communication tool. Applications for the summit are open until 11:59pm Pacific time on Sunday April 11th 2021.
Murad’s New York Times bestselling memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, is a harrowing account of the genocide of her people, the Yazidi, and her kidnap – from the small farming village in Sinjar in northern Iraq where she was raised - and imprisonment by the Islamic State (IS). After a month in captivity, she escaped to Germany as a refugee and soon thereafter addressed the UN Security Council on human trafficking and slavery, an appearance that focused attention on the ongoing plight of the Yazidi community and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
As co-recipients of the Nobel, Murad and Denis Mukwege were honored for “their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”. Murad was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, and in 2016, she received the Council of Europe’s Vaclav Havel Award for Human Rights and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. She is also the recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association of Spain, and was named the 2016 Woman of the Year by Glamour Magazine.
Murad is the founder and president of Nadia’s Initiative, a non-profit that is dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their communities. Since 2015, she has also been working with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Yazda, a Yazidi rights organization, to bring ISIS before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
“We are deeply honoured to have Nadia as our keynote speaker at the summit,” says Debbie Rogers, Managing Director of Praekelt.org. “Her work as a human rights activist in the areas of genocide and sexual violence will provide inspiration and insights to the Chat for Impact community made up of organizations working in the areas of social justice and equality.”
The Chat for Impact Summit is powered by WhatsApp in partnership with Praekelt.org and Turn.io as well as global development community media platform Devex
For more information on the summit and how to apply, click here
